William Penn Adair Rogers was better known as Will Rogers. He was born November 4, 1879 and died August 15, 1935. He was an American cowboy, comedian, humorist, social commentator, vaudeville performer, actor and one of the best-known celebrities in the 1920s and 1930s.

Known as Oklahoma's favourite son, Rogers was born to a prominent Cherokee Nation family in Indian Territory, now part of Oklahoma. He travelled round the world three times, made 50 silent films and 21 talkies, wrote more than 4,000 nationally-syndicated newspaper columns and with the passing of time became a world-famous figure. By the mid-1930s, Rogers was adored by the American people. He was the leading political wit of the Progressive Era and also a top-paid Hollywood movie star at the time. Rogers died in 1935 with aviator Wiley Post, when their small air plane crashed near Barrow, Alaska. Here are some of his recommendations:

1. Never slap a man who is chewing tobacco.

2. Never kick a cow chip on a hot day.

3. There are two theories about arguing with a woman.Neither works.

4. Never miss a good chance to shut up.

5. Always drink upstream from the herd.

6. If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.

7. The quickest way of doubling your money is to fold itand put it back into your pocket.

8. There are three kinds of men:The ones that learn by reading.The few who learn by observation.The rest of them have to pee on an electric fenceto find out for themselves.

9. Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.

10. If you're riding ahead of the herd, take a look back every now and thento make sure it's still there.

11. Lettin' the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier'n puttin' it back.

12. After eating an entire bull, a mountain lion felt so good he started roaring.He kept this up until a hunter came along and shot him.My advice: When you're full of bull, keep your mouth shut.

Finally: Never squat while wearing your spurs!

About Growing Older

First: You will reach a point when you stop lyingabout your age and start bragging about it.

Second: The older we get, the fewer things seem worth waiting in line for.

Third: Some people try to turn back their odometers.Not me. I want people to know why I look this way.I've traveled a long way, and some of the roads weren't paved.

Fourth: When you are dissatisfied and would like to go back to youth,think of Algebra.

Fifth: You know you are getting old when everything either dries up or leaks.

Sixth: I don't know how I got over the hill without getting to the top.

Seventh: One of the many things no one tells you about getting oldis what a nice change it is from being young.

Eighth: One has to wait until evening to be able to tell how good the day has been.

Ninth: Being young is beautiful, but being old is much more comfortable.

Tenth: Long ago, when men cursed and beat the ground with sticks,it was called witchcraft. Today they call it golf.

And, finally: If you don't learn to laugh at troubles,you'll certainly have nothing to laugh at when you're old.

Watch the frustration of drivers when they encounter a row of old folks who are crossing a road in an orderly fashion to get to a corner store, only to discover that it’s closed when they are almost there.

I have a little Satnav, it sits there in my carA Satnav is a driver’s friend, it tells you where you are.I have a little Satnav, I’ve had it all my life.It’s better than the normal ones, my Satnav is my wife.It gives me full instructions, especially how to drive.‘It’s sixty miles an hour’, it says, ‘You’re doing sixty five’.It tells me when to stop and start, and when to use the brake,And that it’s never ever safe to overtake.

It tells me when a light is red, and when it goes to green.It seems to know instinctively, just when to intervene.It lists the vehicles just in front and all those to the rearAnd taking this into account, it specifies my gear.I’m sure no other driver has so helpful a device,For when we leave and lock the car, it continues its advice.

It fills me up with counselling, each journey’s pretty fraught.So why don’t I exchange it and get a quieter sort?Ah well, you see, it cleans the house, makes sure I’m properly fed.It washes all my shirts and things, and keeps me warm in bed.Despite all these advantages and my tendency to scoff,I only wish at times that I could turn the darned thing off.

Greetings, my fellow Zubukians! I intended to address you today from the balcony of Government House. Unfortunately, current circumstances preclude that, so I must ask you to accept this television broadcast as a substitute. When I finish speaking here, I shall try to make my way to Revolution Square and review the annual parade of our magnificent Republican Guard, after the insurg . . . er . . . merrymakers now occupying that holiest of grounds have, entirely of their own free will, dispersed. I am informed that this will be within an hour.

For all of us, this is a solemn day, yet also a joyous one. Solemn because it gives us the opportunity to commune on a national basis, feeling ourselves at one with our ancestors, and joyous because it was exactly twenty years ago that we threw off the yoke of colonialism. Further, it is nineteen years to the day since the events took place which resulted in my becoming Prime Minister and, three weeks later, President of our beloved country.

I am deeply conscious of the heavy burdens placed upon me by the simultaneous holding of the two highest offices of our state, the more so as there is nobody who will, or can, lift them from me. I fear that I shall not be able to relinquish these duties this side of the grave. We live in troubled times. Everywhere in the world there is disorder, and we cannot insulate ourselves. There is no denying that we have our problems. Even in my own party, the National Alliance for Zubukian Integration, there has been unrest and, it must be admitted, corruption. Many of you will recall that only seventeen short years ago, I was obliged to dismiss the ministers of finance, home affairs, foreign relations and transport. Having no suitable replacements, I was forced to assume their portfolios myself- – yet more responsibilities that I shall, however reluctantly, be required to discharge for the rest of my days.

Why shall I not be able to cast off these millstones? I think you know. During the post-colonial disturbances, every party but my own in our hallowed land simply disintegrated, vanishing virtually overnight. It was left to us alone to carry the inextinguishable torch of democracy. True, there was an attempt made recently to form a viable opposition. To my deepest chagrin, that effort failed. I was greatly distressed by the collapse of the Alternative Progressive Enlightenment- – the APE -party.

Feelings ran high at the time, and the prevailing mood affected me as much as anyone. I cannot look back without a sense of deep sorrow at my last words to the leader of the aspirant rival organisation. I merely intended to convey my admiration of the man as, so to speak, the dominant male in his movement. It was regrettable that I referred to him as the chief ape. Also, my remark was ill-timed, coming as it did two hours before the untimely and, I emphasise, totally accidental demise of that fine young statesman. May his soul forgive me.

The unfortunate disappearance of the APE party was not the last of our troubles. Even now there are elements in our revered homeland intent upon fomenting strife. Indeed, it is for this reason that I speak now from the National Security Compound, surrounded by three- – yes, three- – concentric perimeter fences of four-metre-high electrified wire. I ask you to remember that fact, though the last thing I want is to be separated from you by the defences of a totally impregnable fortress. My dearest wish is to be among you, wringing your . . . hands. Yes, my friends, your hands.

Our former colonial masters claimed to have left us with a working governmental system. I spit upon their assertion. If they had made adequate provision before their departure, why were we compelled to discard their arrangements? We even had to change the name of our country. The colonists left us with what? I will remind you. The stark and unimaginative Zubukia. With our modernisation plan, we changed that in less than two years to the People”s Democratic Republic of Zubukia, or PDRZ. Can anyone doubt that this is more appropriate to our status in the world?

My compatriots, we have recently been the target of unwarranted attention from various external bodies. The international team that visited us last year concluded that literacy standards here had declined since colonial days. I spit upon their report. They said that the level was formerly fifty-two per cent and that it had fallen to twenty-three per cent. Do these meddlers not realise that we have our own traditions, our storytellers, to meet our needs? Notwithstanding that, I strive ceaselessly for improvement. I aim to ensure that in under ten years, there will a book in every school and, where there is evening tuition, a candle in each classroom.

We have been told by another agency, whose name I cannot bear to utter, that we lag behind other democracies in terms of our degree of enfranchisement. I spit upon this supposed finding. Is it not true that every first-born male over the age of forty in our country now has the vote? How does that accord with the monstrous charge against us? Obviously it does not. Our advance has been exemplary and will continue at an appropriate pace.

I must now deal with the most unworthy of all the accusations hurled at us. I refer to a bulletin issued by the World Bank, saying that our ninety-billion-dollar finds of oil, gas, uranium, platinum, gold and copper should have been better used in the last nine years. We are told that a land of four million people should be reaping greater benefits from such bounty. At the risk of being censured for excessive expectoration, I spit upon that document. Such malice can have been engendered only by the fact that no interest has yet been paid on the loan of twelve billion dollars, made to us by the Bank eight years ago.

Who is at fault? These legalised loan sharks should have known better than to bury our poor country under such a mountain of money. Our financial structure could not cope. Inevitably, there was confusion, multipartite transactions and complex pecuniary allocations which I struggle unflaggingly to trace. I was, sorrowfully, obliged to seek the assistance of a certain European country, well-versed in these matters. The World Bank asks where the funds in question are now. I answer that that is m . . . our business. Further, if the masters of usury continue to badger us, I shall, on your behalf, repudiate the debt. Do you hear this, you Shylocks in Washington? Not one shavaster shall I pay.

Now, my friends, the cares of state demand that I leave you for the moment. I hear the clanking and rumbling of those tribulations closing in upon me. They are constantly at my gate. If you can still see or hear this transmission, I ask you to join me in singing our national anthem, Zubukia Forever. Let the rafters ring!

How about a genuine Pam Ayres poem now?I suspect that someone wrote ‘The Sat Nav’ of a few days agoin response to Pam’s ode below:

They Should Have Asked My Husband

This world is complicated, imperfect, and oppressed,And it’s not hard to feel timid, apprehensive and depressed.It seems that all around us tides of questions ebb and flow;People want solutions, but they don’t know where to go.Opinions abound, but who is wrong and who is right?People need a prophet, a diffuser of the light;Someone they can turn to, as the crises rage and swirl;Someone with the remedy, the wisdom and the pearl.

Well, they should have asked my husband!He’d have told them, then and there,His thoughts on emigration, teenage mothers, Tony Blair,The future of the monarchy, house prices in the South,The wait for hip replacements, BSE, and foot and mouth.

Yes, they should have asked my husband!He can sort out any mess;He can rejuvenate the railways, and cure the NHS.So, any little niggle, anything you want to know,Just run it past my husband, wind him up and let him go!

Congestion on the motorways, free holidays for thugs,The damage to the ozone layer, refugees, and drugs?These may defeat the brain of any politician bloke,But present it to my husband; he’ll solve it, at a stroke!He’ll clarify the situation, he will make it crystal clear.

You’ll feel the glazing of your eyeballsAnd the bending of your ear.Corruption at the top? He’s an authority on that,And the Maffia, Gadhaffia, and Yassa Arafat.Upon these areas, he brings his intellect to shine,In a great, compelling voiceThat’s twice as loud as yours or mine.I often wonder what it must be like to be so strong,Infallible, articulate, self-confident, and wrong.

When it comes to tolerance, he hasn’t got a lot:Joy-riders should be guillotined,And muggers ought to be shot!The sound of his own voice becomes like music to his ears,And he hasn’t got an inkling that he’s boring us to tears.

My friends don’t call so often;They have busy lives, I know,And it’s not every day one wants to hearA windbag suck and blow.Encyclopaedias? On them, we never have to call.Why clutter up the bookshelf, when my husband knows it all?

A lady in her late forties felt that she could do with some major plastic surgery, hoping that it would make a new woman out of her. On the operation table she had an out-of-the-body experience in which she met God who told her that she was going to live for another fifty years.

As soon as she had sufficiently recovered from her operation, she hurled herself into a huge rejuvenation programme, lost two stone, had a facelift, a nose job and breast implants, some liposuction and she also dyed her hair. A year later, the woman was hit by a car and killed. Upon reaching Heaven, she rushed up to God and shouted furiously: ‘You told me I was going to live for another fifty years on the Earth plane!’ ‘I’m very sorry about that,’ said God, ‘I didn’t recognise you.’